I'm your host, Jester. I've been an EVE Online player for about six years. One of my four mains is Ripard Teg, pictured at left. Sadly, I've succumbed to "bittervet" disease, but I'm wandering the New Eden landscape (and from time to time, the MMO landscape) in search of a cure.You can follow along, if you want...

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Traitor

OK, let's talk about the industry changes announced so far.

Between the refining change announced last month and the overall sweep of the industry changes announced by CCP Ytterbium a few days ago, a number of you want to talk to me about this. And most or all of you that want to talk to me about it have one thing in common: you do your manufacturing in high-sec or low-sec. The latter group are mostly solo capital producers. You guys, by and large, are particularly angry.

And yeah, make no mistake: I totally get why. Most of the advantages that are being touted, particularly in refining, are mostly going to benefit null-sec. Refining will be more efficient in null-sec than can be managed in high- or low-sec and though we haven't seen the full sweep of the changes for manufacturing, it's a pretty damn good bet that manufacturing is going to be cheaper in null-sec as well. Particularly since -- *shudder* -- it's CCP Greyscale working on that. "Expect costs ranging from 0% to 14% of the base item being produced for the most extreme case," Ytterbium says.

That's pretty freakin' significant since as I covered a couple of years ago, once you take out the materials costs today the "COGS" -- cost of goods sold -- for most manufacturing in EVE typically runs less than one percent, the vast bulk of that in station taxes. Manufacturing costs are insignificant to the point of being something industry players ignore entirely. Once summer comes, industry players will no longer be able to ignore those costs. Players that live on industry would be idiots not to pass those costs directly to their customers, and players that live on industry are definitely not idiots. Most of them know their profit margins down to the fraction of a percent. I know I sure do!

Therefore, what Ytterbium is saying is that every single little thing in EVE is about to become 5-10% more expensive. Some things will be 14% more expensive. And those items built in high-sec will be on the higher end of that curve, while the items built in null-sec will almost certainly be at the low end of that curve. And the bigger and more expensive and more reliant on minerals the item is, the bigger the benefit is going to be to build that item in deep null-sec. As I said, the low-sec capital producers are particularly annoyed.

What this naturally means is that goods built in null-sec and shipped to Jita will have a significant cost benefit over goods that are built in high-sec and shipped to Jita. Furthermore, the tendency is going to be that the further away something is built from Jita, the lower the cost of that item is going to be and the higher the profit margin that manufacturer is going to realize. The systems nearest Jita are almost certainly going to end up being -- either through dev intention or player action -- the most expensive places to do industry.

This is absolutely, totally going to flip high-sec industry and trade on its head. Hell, it's even somewhat possible that we'll even see multiple major trade hubs grow out of this change. Sooner or later people might start getting bored with all that logistics, say "screw it" and start selling their stuff in high-sec entry systems closer to where those things are being manufactured. If Burn Jita is too successful this year, this possibility actually becomes slightly more likely.

And in the midst of this, the people who are making their living doing the bulk of their manufacturing in high-sec -- and I include myself among this number -- are going to be the most trodden on: we'll be paying the most for minerals, we'll almost certainly be paying the most for manufacturing. That is going to make our margins on a lot of products razor thin... where we're able to sell these items for a profit at all. I suspect there are some items for which manufacturing in high-sec at a profit is about to become impossible!

"Jester," some of you are saying, "make CCP understand this!"

And here's the simple fact of the matter: guys, they do understand this. Hell, they haven't said so -- if they had, it would be NDA -- but I suspect that's the goal of the exercise. Greyscale in particular has for years been the champion of the philosophy that doing some activities in some areas of space should completely suck and you would be dumb to do those activities there. In the past, the goal has been to make living full-time in null-sec directly correlate with higher player income than living in high-sec. I can easily see industry warping off in that direction come summer.

Did I raise a major objection to this at the Summit? Call me a traitor if you must, but no I did not. Because in the long-term grand scheme of things, this view of EVE is the correct one and it's more healthy for the game.

Now, I might object on other fronts. For instance, I'm personally of the view that there are vast swaths of null-sec that are much safer than high-sec because they happen to be either full of friendly pilots 24/7 or somewhat more often are simply empty of another living soul. As a result, a good bit of null-sec manufacturing is about to become ridiculously profitable while at the same time being ridiculously safe. You do your manufacturing, you pile everything into a jump freighter, and you jump all of it nearly directly into Jita (or wherever). You can add the JF fuel to your COGS confident in the knowledge that even with this expenditure, your profit margin is still probably going to be higher than if you did the very same manufacturing in high-sec.

But as I keep saying, the safety that I feel in null-sec is something that should be addressed in a rebalance of how sovereignty works and the mechanics of null-sec. It's one of the ways in which I feel null-sec is broken. I might shift uncomfortably in my chair and wish that CCP would address that before they addressed the industry expansion. But CCP Seagull showed us all a picture last Fanfest of a giant star gate being built in space. To get to her vision, EVE needed a Crimewatch-level rebuild of industry and it looks like over time we're going to get that.

So, there's likely no stopping this train.

In the meantime, all that I can tell you high- and low-sec manufacturers is what's good for the goose is good for the gander. There are dozens and dozens of PvE-, mining-, and industry-focused corps in null-sec now. Sure, they're mostly called "renters" and sure, I think the whole rental mechanic in EVE is more than a little bit dumb.

But it certainly isn't stopping industry players from taking advantage of the coming changes by sticking your manufacturing alts in these renter corps and taking advantage of these new industry tactics yourself once they come along (assuming they do). After all, in the end you'll be well paid to do so and it will continue to be the safest way of making money in EVE Online. And isn't that why you got into industry in the first place?

Most of the argument seems to revolve around the premise that since nullsec has sucked for industry for years, it *should* suck for industry.

What should be is that *all* areas of space are viable for industry, with different but balanced advantages. Jester is a little disingenuous when he talks about the profitability of manufacturing in "perfectly safe" 0.0 space. That space is only as safe as it is through actual player effort. The players making that effort are going to want a slice of the pie if they start seeing industrialists making vast profits in that "safe" space.

Further, hi-sec retains several compelling advantages. First, it *is* safer than 0.0, and anyone who says different is frankly a liar. It's so safe that players routinely AFK-mine, run missions in multi-billion ISK fits and haul large amounts of expensive goods in subcaps *even when there are dozens of neutrals in local*.

Hi-sec industrialists will have the following advantages: -Free invulnerable stations, including hundreds of systems with multiple stations.-The CONCORD deterrent, which is again FREE, and never sleeps, never gets bored, never complains, never goes off on an inty roam just when you want to get some mining done, never demands you supply ships to the SRP...-Local access to bulk low-end mineral production. The large majority of low end minerals are created in hi-sec, and even after the refinery changes this will continue. It's far easier to move high-end minerals to the low ends than v.v.-POS that can only be attacked by subcaps. This is a nice little advantage now; it will become a larger one.

The main "disadvantage" that hi-sec suffers is that it's so easy, so safe, so convenient to do industry there that the inhabitants have never had to bother putting in the effort to form groups or work together or even really pay attention to other players.

Even without bothering to do any of those things, hi-sec industry currently has an overwhelming advantage for years. Now that's going to change, and for some reason we're supposed to sympathise that people who have had literally every possible advantage are going to have to compete on a slightly more level playing field.

And generally the only arguments that come forward are(1) Hi-sec is *meant* to be better in every way(2) If I don't keep all my advantages, I'll quit

What a load of tripe. Null-industry sucks because none wants to do it. They can fund billions into Cap Ships, not one single null power has bothered significantly invest industry. Who wants to be a miner when a large portion of the player revile that mechanic.

Ignore Industrialists: In an alliance or corporation, industrialists are completely irrelevant and should never be allowed a voice in anything. Sound extreme? It isn’t. An industrialist is not a logistician, but a ‘producer’.

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/249413/page/2

That's the Mittani's take on Industry. You can pile on hulkgeddon and Ice Interdiction to heap up on the comtempt.

-Free invulnerable stations, including hundreds of systems with multiple stations.Bullshit - it is not "free" if you need to a serious amount of game time to EARN standing to run these facilities CHEAPER. What you are now going to tell us that self-mined minerals are free?

-The CONCORD deterrent, which is again FREE, and never sleeps, never gets bored, never complains, never goes off on an inty roam just when you want to get some mining done, never demands you supply ships to the SRP...More rubbish. Sit down and think for a moment, If you need to train into Industry what good are these skills to defend my ship in space. Industrialist need to complete in three to one. Another Industrialists, professional traders AND piracy. The whole intent of the game is competition. So when some bored tosser suicide ganks a barge - what is the competitive motive? To mine the minerals for himself. Oh Christ no - that never enters the equation. Suicide Ganking is a just an act of spite. And I can assure you that the derrent has long since euthanized thanks to high DPS disposable ships and meaningless sec-loss. Maybe recidivism should be rewarded by losing all docking access. Let pirates run a POS, and let them take some actual risk with valuable asset. -Local access to bulk low-end mineral production. The large majority of low end minerals are created in hi-sec, and even after the refinery changes this will continue. It's far easier to move high-end minerals to the low ends than Hi sec currently does not have access to mineral compression and refineries can not be anchored in high-sec. There is growing trend against Freighters across hi-sec significantly increasing the risk of moving ores/minerals. -POS that can only be attacked by subcaps. This is a nice little advantage now; it will become a larger one.So, get friends - some people love to play with themselves, but this is a MMO. Or hire mercs - share the wealth.

Malcanis, most of this material from you looks like regurgitated from the null (read goon) agenda. And they only tell you half the story.

Well look, you really want your convictions tested, disable Concord for a week.

Tell no one (it’s my secret shame :), but the bulk of my alts are Hi-Sec industrialists and they look on the upcoming changes with great equanimity. Markets, you see are amazing things. In addition to the flat cost of production, they price in both competitive environment and comparative hassle. When you begin to consider these additional points it opens up the possibility of flourishing in a less than absolutely optimal situation. “Go null or go home” views refuse to consider such possibilities. Let’s look at a few:

1) Null-Sec production, Null-Sec sales. As a Hi-Sec industrialist this looks to be a six of one, half a dozen of the other situation. Sure, my Hi-Sec customer base is gonna drop (Null is producing and buying local now) but my Hi-Sec competition is gonna drop too (many Industrialist competitors have wandered off to Null-Sec).

2) Null-Sec production, Hi-Sec sales. This could be interesting. Sure, my Null-Sec competitors have lower costs of production but selling in Hi-Sec is gonna include some logistical hassle and a touch of risk I don’t have to deal with. How much of a premium are they gonna charge for that hassle and risk, especially considering they can avoid both by selling local out in Null. Just might be room for me to flourish in my less than perfectly optimal niche.

4) Hi-Sec industrialists, in a vitriolic pique of irritation, unsub in mass. While this sucks for CCP, it’s good news for me. My competition is closing up shop. Hurray for me!!! (CCP’s market decisions aren’t my problem. They’ll either adapt or die. This is the way of markets.)

The presumption underneath “Go null or go home” is that the (possibly few) industrialists willing to move out to Null-Sec are suddenly going to be able to provide all the market needs of the entire EvE universe all by themselves. Really? It’s a big market out there. Personally, I plan to explore the new topography before jumping to histrionics.

Malcanis is so quick to denigrate hisec safety that he's ignoring the ISK nerf. All that safety will be nearly meaningless if profitability is dropping nearly to, or beyond, zero. It's early days yet, but absent some detailed forecasting of consequences, or promises of future balancing mechanisms, what's being described in the OP seems hard to justify.

The changes described seem severe, in contrast to CCP's general policy of making minor tweaks to nudge us toward where they want us to be. We can see a Rubicon here, but what's the end game?

-POS that can only be attacked by subcaps. This is a nice little advantage now; it will become a larger one.

There is no advantage any longer. After the rebalance of the marauders, it just takes a few of them to take down the largest POS. In bastion mode, they are immune to ewar, and can easily tank POS guns thanks to their high resists and the horrendous POS code-switching targets frequently. Dickstars were once a reasonable deterrent, but no longer. Deathstars will simply buy you a little time. If you have a HS POS, better get used to logging in twice a day to see if you've been dec'd.

Now we can lose our researched BPOs as well? I have several that required a year or more of research. Hmmm.

"The players making that effort are going to want a slice of the pie if they start seeing industrialists making vast profits in that "safe" space."

Solution: Do not show them the profits, or that you are making profits. How are they going to see profits without you showing them to your landlords? Do landlords ask renters for full APIs now or something?

Talking about wants isn't all that interesting anyway. Nullsec entities are currently charging as much rent as the market will bear; they're not giving renters fat deals because they like having pets. If the demand for rental space goes up with this patch, than the price will naturally go up some as well.There's no reason to believe that the amorphous 'wants' of unnamed players in nullsec will have a significant effect when compared to these well understood market effects.

1: I'm beginning to suspect the 20 million in code written off the books could have been the industry code? Is that it or are we still waiting for that announcement?

2: One thing that is really unclear to me is the cost of manufacture in high sec POS, with the removal of slots. If a station in high sec is very busy, ie "congested" - the costs go up (up to 14%)... but if I'm sitting in my POS 3 AU away and I'm not cranking it to the max, am I going to be affected by those costs too?!? If not, manufacturing in POS won't change too much (as long as we don't go crazy on production).

3: A number of people are going to scream bloody murder over this. This change may be for the long term good of the game, allow those giant stargates to god knows where but... the *optics* are horrible. Many people are going to claim that the CSM is enabling the building of vast rental empires by a few powerful nullsec coalitions. Some of these people (ok, the goons) have spent years mocking carebears. Do you think said highsec players will want to become goon serfs now?

I'm willing to wait and see, but others definitely are going to flip out.

4. The busier nullsec is, the more valuable renter space is, the more tempting target it will become, making it less safe.

5: Providence population may grow tremendously after this, and may in fact become overcrowded.

"1: I'm beginning to suspect the 20 million in code written off the books could have been the industry code? Is that it or are we still waiting for that announcement?"

You're kidding, right? You did hear that World of Darkness was cancelled? I don't believe you can write off code in EVE, since it is an active game. And they're not so much throwing out code as altering it and expanding it.

I'm not really convinced making nullsec strictly better than lowsec and highsec with regard to manufacturing is the right way forward. With margins already so slim, you run a serious risk of making non-null industry non-viable.

You Ripard and CCP are making a fatal assumption. Two fatal assumptions, actually, bundled in deep-shit insider blindness.

The first assumption is that players in general want to play EVE as nullseccers.

I recall how some years ago, an expert stated, a bit bluntly, that America's main issue with foreign policy is that American FP usually struggles with how foreigners ARE NOT American in disguise, waiting for a chance to be American. American FP barely understands how foreigners pretty much enjoy being alien as that's what floats their boat.

CCP's fatal assumption is that EVE players are nullseccers in disguise, and if they are not, it's because they aren't being incentivized enough, and so they can be herded into nullsec with a bit of carrot and stick. And that is totally oblivious on how People Mk 1. works outside of EVE.

Hisec industrialists play the game because they want to be hisec industrialists. They actually are doing what they want to do and what floats their boat and makes them hand out money to CCP. They don't need to be reeducated, herded nor otherwise "incentivized". Making their gameplay unsustainable is just going to drive them out of the game, because, if they were willing to cope with nullsec, they would be doing so. It's not a matter of carrot and stick: they are not nullseccers in disguise, they are hiseccers and either they're allowed to be so, or they will go away looking for greener pastures.

Making hisec industry inviable is going to drive people out of hisec and out of the game in a single step, as every step in that direction has done in the past. FAI, how much PI is being done nowadays? If the answer is "a lot more", congratulations, you're best without the kin of my PI friends. But my bet is that the answer is like, "since POCOs, PI has been enjoying negative growth above that of EVE's average PCU".

The second fatal assumption is even more dangerous than the first one, as it's the one that's been killing the game since "use oriented design" was implemented.

CCP assumes that, as certain players belong to groups with long tenures, it is worthy to focus on those groups and somewhat not-prioritize the ones with shorter tenures. It's one of those "common sense" concepts which couldn't be wrong in any way, right? It couldn't be wrong, but for a little detail:

Most players have short tenures in every game, and all new players are by definition players with a short tenure.

By focusing on long tenures, CCP is rejecting the vast majority of potential new players, and the actual new players are being hurt as a part of the "short tenure" crowd unless they accidentally live long enough to join the "long tenure" players.

New players naturally meet hisec, naturally grow there, and naturally die there unless they're lucky, as hiseccers are short-tenure players and CCP doesn't deems them worthy of anything else but continuous carrot-and-stick until they become the kind of players CCP wants/needs. I hope that the irony of a sandbox being developed so it drives away players who don't play it along a established path isn't lost...

To end this wall of text, I will just state a TL;DR.

Fatal assumption 1: players who play EVE as not-nullsec will become nullsec if they're incentivized enough

Wrong because those people will rather leave the game than change their chosen way of playing it.

Fatal assumption 2: if a kind of player stays longer, favoring that kind of player will make the game sustainable over any improvements for players who stay shorter

Wrong because new players can't benefit from the improvements done to long term players, and are hurt along with the short term players, who also are a large majority of all potential players.

+1. Nullsec is great, but it has more issues than I'd care to deal with. If forced to do so by ruining hisec, I'm not going to instantly fall in love with null. I'm just going to like the game even less.

Fatal Assumption 3: The interests of the dread overlords of the nullsec oligarchy are identical in every way with the interests of the average nullseccer.

This business plan of manipulating the Eve economy in favour of a tiny group of entrenched players, the aforementioned dread overlords, is, in almost every way identical with the business plan of tolerating stuff like the Bonus Room and proclaiming everyone can just HTFU. Is it then surprising that same tiny group of entrenched players were among the loudest advocates of keeping Eve safe for the bonus round?

Notice, by the way that the dread overlords are never too anxious to HTFU themselves by surrendering any of the economic or military privileges that CCP throws their way.

It would be good for someone in CCP to read a little early modern history. Trying to sustain oligarchies by manipulating the economy in their favour did not work out too well for the Bourbons... Or the Habsburgs... Or the Romanovs... Or the Hohenzollerns...

"Hisec industrialists play the game because they want to be hisec industrialists. They actually are doing what they want to do and what floats their boat and makes them hand out money to CCP."

Show me a industrialist, ANY sec, who hasn't got to where they have without reference to the many player generated guides, apps or such to help them get into industry, all of them showing for a long time now that the only cost effective, efficient and viable way to do this is in high sec.

When you start a new game for the first time you do not come into it with an aim of being x or y as you have yet to play the game to find out what you can be or what you may want to be. If the guides did not exist we would not have new players assuming high sec production is the norm so this is not industrialists trying to protect *new* industrialists, it is (as is entirely natural) High sec industrialists trying to protect themselves and their margins from having to adapt to survive like the real world and amusingly like every other play style in eve.

I have little sympathy for people who say "this is the way I do things, if it does not continue exactly as i wish it I will leave and take my toys with me and YOU will be sorry" Amusingly I feel that an exodus of these self entitled people who have long since streamlined their process' to the point that THEY are making it impossible for new players to compete with will do more to help the new players they claim to be looking out for than any hurt ccp is currently looking at doing.

I speak as someone who recently started getting into industry and struggled to find anything to build that wasn't already being made more efficiently in bulk by other more seasoned industrialists who had been playing for a long time and had access to the resources of their long tenure (reseached bp's and raw cash) to make it all but impossible to get started as a new player.

A shake up is long overdue and to be honest the bigger the better as it will allow those with the greatest initiative to thrive and in this game and it is often those the most engaged with the living breathing game and its manifold changes that also breath life back into it and create content for other people playing the game, not players who are hide bound to their way of doing things and wish the world to conform to them.

I guess I summarise my point as "change is coming" if you don't want to be like many companies in the real world that saw change coming (I think a good example would be blockbuster) but failed to adapt do not cry when change leaves you behind. There will always be those willing to make the changes and reap the rewards of it, you are not owed your rewards, you like everyone else have to earn them. If you are not prepared to make the changes and would rather leave then do not let the door hit you on the way out and obligatory "can I have your stuff?"

Interesting comment. Just want to reply to the bit about "use oriented design". I believe you're referring to "User Centred Design", which is something that CCP Arrow gave a fanfest talk on. The core idea of a "User Centred Design" process is to involve a range of actual users early and throughout the design process. The idea being that you don't make design decisions on unfounded assumptions or on just what the designer wants the experience to be.

There's certainly plenty of grey area, but there is most definitely a difference guiding player behaviour and trying to alter their motivations. If CCP doesn't understand why hi sec industry is appealing to some players and is attempting to force them to change their play style, as you're suggesting, then that most certainly is not a "User Centred Design" process. It's hard to tell what's actually intended at this stage, as there are still a lot more details yet to be revealed.

On a side note, my first reaction to these changes was that the new cost scaling mechanic seems like something that will potentially be a constant source of frustration for players. Perhaps it would be a better to incentivise with something that is fun as opposed to frustrating?

You seem to think industrialists are by definition highseccers. They are not. There are plenty of people in nullsec who enjoy industry, but barring cap production they are forced to do it on their highsec alts. This sucks because they dislike being in highsec as much you dislike being in nullsec.

This situation exists because highsec industry not just more profitable, but because nullsec industry is straight up non profitable thanks to the (almost) free and safe transport and production facilities highsec enjoys. The result is that nullsec industry cannot be made viable without nerfing highsec. The summer changes will give a quantifiable benefit to nullsec production offset by fuel costs and the harder to predict costs of increased risk. This does not mean highsec industry will go away. This is not CCP's intention. It will be less profitable, but where the balance will fall is something that no one can yet predict. Likely some markets will be dominated by nullsec industrialists and others by highsec. That is fine. Both kinds of players can now enjoy EVE.

You're second point would be valid in 2005 EVE, when newbies were forced to dwell in highsec until they had enough skill points to get out. This stopped being true a long time ago. There are quite a few sov holding alliances that recruit newbies (all three reddit alliances, goons, even waffles to a certain degree even). These alliances are faced with the issue that newbies have trouble making ISK in nullsec. They can't tank or kill the battleship rats. There are no missions. They can't do industry in nullsec without losing money and need to buy a plex to train the required highsec alt. Thanks to years of lobbying CCP is finally changing one of these things and you're against it? CCP is very much doing the opposite of favoring long time players here because the current situation results in pvp minded newbies being poor as hell and living off handouts. Their other option is to remain in highsec where they will be bored to death and quit after the end of their trial.

I understand you are afraid but highsec will not go away. You can still mine and make products as you always have, but in the summer you will have competition from people willing to work together and make their sandcastles in nullsec.

@Modex:Thank you! Yes, I wanted to write "user oriented design" (the "r" went amiss) but I was thinking of "User Centred Design" and how that relates to what CCP does currently.

They are engaging the players more than never before and write devblogs on how great it is, and yet I think that they are continuously biased by "insider blindness". People who are "in" just can't figure enough how it is to be "out" unless they engage those outlanders, whose main trait is that they are OUT.

People who vote the CSM don't represent those who don't vote, but those guys "out" still pay CCP... why? What do they do? CCP looks at numbers and graphs and tries to crunch them into a meaning, but when it comes to interacting and checking, they only interact with a skewed minority elected by a slightly larger minority. CCP is literally blind to the people who is "out".

CCP's version of "User Centred Design" looks like "(The 15% Of Guys Who Are In) Centred Design". I've met their victims before and I wonder how many corpses will leave behind this change.

Even if these changes are for the better of the game/game economy in the long haul, there's a big elephant in the room that CCP should address FIRST. And that's the "HTFU, null is the REAL game" mentality that's pervasive.

Apparently, EVE is a sandbox right up until the point that folks don't play it the way you think they should. Many players have ignored the lure of null and the tomfoolery there for a decade now; nerfing my back yard to the ground seems almost like retribution.

I think Ripard put it best (paraphrased by me) that null is supposed to be the higher end of the profit margin while being the riskiest place to do so. However the issue is that null has become a wasteland and a blue-filled paradise at the same time.

"I speak as someone who recently started getting into industry and struggled to find anything to build that wasn't already being made more efficiently in bulk by other more seasoned industrialists who had been playing for a long time and had access to the resources of their long tenure (reseached bp's and raw cash) to make it all but impossible to get started as a new player."

That's an incredibly silly argument - and I'm not surprised that you haven't found anything profitable to manufacture given your reasoning skills.

Assume what you say above is true, do you think it will be any LESS TRUE after the changes? In fact it won't be - it'll be even more true. All those trends that you identify will give an even bigger advantage after the changes. They will have the capital, SP and experience to get better deals with better rental corps.

The original argument is entirely true - a lot of people just want to build things - thats what they get their satisfaction from - and they really don't want to deal with large corp politics or have PVP forced on them.

Now I think they are missing the best part of the game - but I'd rather they remain in EVE playing *their* game, than leave the game altogether.

This is another perfect instance of CCP encouraging a somewhat pathological play style. It's of a piece with their HTFU remarks, their tacit encouragement of griefing etc.

"Nullsec is the real game. There are no stories that come out of highsec (that aren't instigated by nullsec groups) that attract new subscribers to EVE Online."

That's fine. Attraction is one thing. Retention of new players is another. Don't let your view of what endgame /should be/ muddy up my sandbox. It's a tricky balance, but highsec play needs to be a viable endgame state.

There is nothing *else* CCP has to do to make nullsec less safe than they are doing *now*. Nullsec is safe because no one but combative lolkids go there in their stupid frigs.

If CCP makes industry, mining, killing NPCs more lucrative in nullsec than in highsec, people will go there. People who can easily create a capital supported battleship fleet. Then your "safe" nullsec will become contested.

Living in nullsec should be a privilege everyone aims for and not a niche for drunkards looking for fights.

I was hoping to see Jester expound on the changes he thinks should happen to balance the nerfs to hisec industry, but Gevlon's reply makes sense. Null pirates, bears and renters should see higher profit margins outside the reach of empire taxmen, but higher risk and sov fluidity should go along with that.

Null has ossified as the doughnut's gotten bluer and bluer. Hiseccers stepping out to grab pieces of the pie could be one step toward destabilizing sov. It seems on the face of it to be laughably insufficient, so I suppose we should pin our hopes on further changes. I do not want Goons spending their new moon lewt on hisec customs offices; it should not be made easier (or even possible) for them to own everything.

Hope CCP knows what they're doing. They keep acknowledging that they want/need more subscribers. Nerfing a relatively safe career path, or making it less safe, seems so far to guarantee them fewer subscribers. Forcing industrialists intto renting in low and null doesn't so far sound like more fun for anyone who isn't already space-rich.

It could be, though, that CCP thinks these changes will force more players to put their posting alts to work, thereby driving an increase in accounts per player?

No, they won't go there. There is a delusion many old nosec vets share. That other people want to be pawns in someone else's game. You may be happy being told what to do and when to do it, but not us. Fuck the slave lords, let them keep "their" game. Let's see how their game holds up when all the "shitlords" of hisec move on to another game.

Star Citizen and Valkyrie cannnot come fast enough. I'm down to one sub from 4. I'm prepaid for a few more months, but that's it for EVE. It's become boring in just about every way it could be.

It's way more possible than it should be. Remember the time Brave Newbies were dicking around VFK because they couldn't find a single ship willing to fight them on the way? Null sec isn't so occupied that small groups of people couldn't wander around anyones territory without a bit of effort

total removal of standing requirements. it is yet another no to sandbox gameplay. a good an more (longterm) healthy thing would have been to enable easier standing-services, enable a new mini.profession for missionrunners. the corp.in.a.corp idea (csm minutes) was much much better.

second, the decreased copy-time. it leads to a lesser need of copy alts, these will be reutilized as invention alts (everyone should train his copy slaves into invention), that leads to more items on the market - > less margin etc pp.ccp allready showed with the scanning nerf, that they are willing to take massiv hits at the economy, crushing whole markets. however, loot is one thing, but a game economy that is so heavily centered around crafting ... are you sure ccp and the csm have been thinking about that too?sorry to say, but from the minutes i guess that no.

i know, most don't care, but eve's market/economy is the one thing that make this game outstanding.

@Edward and Jester - both of you don't know what you are talking about.

Standings have *never* been a barrier to getting into industry. They give you a slight advantage, in terms of taxes, but that is about it.

Putting up a POS, without standings, is very simple. There are a large number of players, with high standings toons, who are willing to put their toons in your corp temporarily (for a fee or even for free), in order to raise your corps standings to the required level for putting up the high-sec POS. Once the POS is up, you don't need the standings any more. The process is well-documented and commonly used, since it is much faster than grinding standings.

That may be an interesting counter-point in the design: on the one hand taxes go up, but on the other it gets easier or faster to make certain things... pos's can be placed anywhere by anyone... perhaps prices won't go up as high as the taxes might suggest.

I lived for over two years in Null, met some great and fought beside some great people as the old NC burned before the DRF and tramped across a number of regions more times than I care to think of.

I left because it had stopped being fun and it wasn't hard to see what Null was becoming. My main lives is LowSec and I have a great time there, no CSA or strat ops, no spending 11 hours in fleet (5 on the Titan catching up with my reading, 3 in lag) at the whim of a group of faceless wonders who almost never log on but just command by Jabber pronouncement as their favourites ran sanctums while the majority fight to protect their space.

The industry revamp is not going to change any of that that and while for me relocating my industrial operations to LowSec is no problem I’d rather leave the game than bend the knee to the Masters of Null again. I had enough of the contempt industry is held in and the megalomania and control freakery that pervades Null last time round.

Worse comes to the worse and if LowSec isn’t profitable enough I’ll just sell off the assets on my indy accounts throw the ISK into my mains wallet and close them down. I’ll just have to see how long that ISK lasts, the RL money I’d be saving on subs I could probably afford to throw a Plex at my main now and again.

It would be a shame really as I enjoy the indy and the logistics I provide for my corp as much as I enjoy the PvP but such is life I suppose.

Lowsec needs help. Coming summer it will still be better than highsec for a lot of goods though, so you will get at least a small buff.

What you think of Null no longer holds true though. Successful nullsec groups, even sov holding ones, do not have CTAs or red pen ops. As you pointed out people would rather go to lowsec/wormholes or not log in than do them. The old guard that pulled this is dead and buried mostly for this very reason.

The current sov masters prefer the carrot approach where you get financial rewards for coming to strategic ops but no penalties if you don't as long as you spend at a significant amount of time pvping in one form or another. As always the golden rule is: If your corp sucks, find a better one.

I'm afraid though that change is to little and to late and doesn't matter any more. A majority of guys and girls I know and fly with, myself included, see Null as stagnant mess with no room in it for individuals or small entities unless your prepared to kiss the ring of one of the resident warlords and allow your corp culture to be washed away and destroyed by the group think of that individuals coalition.

This will never be acceptable, our general feeling is it would be better to unsub and find a new game than it would be to bend the knee. But at least while LowSec still has some room in it for guys like us we will keep playing.

Of course we know sooner or later CCP will try and force us out of LowSec and back to Null like they are trying to force players out of HiSec but with luck it will be a while before they get to us and we should have a few years of good times left before the hammer drops.

"But it certainly isn't stopping industry players from taking advantage of the coming changes by sticking your manufacturing alts in these renter corps and taking advantage of these new industry tactics yourself once they come along (assuming they do). After all, in the end you'll be well paid to do so and it will continue to be the safest way of making money in EVE Online. And isn't that why you got into industry in the first place? "

"But it certainly isn't stopping industry players from taking advantage of the coming changes by sticking your manufacturing alts in these renter corps.... And isn't that why you got into industry in the first place?"

Actually, no.

Many of us got into industry for solo casual play. This actually makes up a surprisingly large percentage of the industry players, and CCP is going to be seeing a noticeable drop in subs, when they quit playing.

Its going to be interesting to see how this plays out and what effect it has on subs. If many of the 10 account HS Industrialists just aren't interested in moving to 0.0 then we may see profits increase as supply drops but also see a drop in subscriptions to go along with it.

I don't know the %, but I do have a dozen or so friends who have stated that they will be unsubbing all of their accounts this summer, when these changes go live.

They all have one-man high-sec industry corps and are casual players, who just like to build things. They have no interest in PVP, or needing to actively defend a POS, or in joining a null-sec corp to do industry with a bunch of other players.

"The current hard data are unknown, but in November 2011 the characters logged in were like 5% in WH, 20% in null, 10% in low and 65% in high."

And this is why I wonder what CCP is smoking in regards to the summer expansion. It's largely a nerf to hisec - their main customer base, if not the most vocal one! - under the false impression that people actually want to go to null or lowsec. Without understanding that the people who want to be in null or lowsec ARE ALREADY THERE.

Remember that those statistics are characters, not accounts. I'm a null-sec player. Across my various accounts, I have 10 characters who primarily live in hisec. I'm far from alone in that. Most null-sec players have one or more hisec characters.

It's unfair to compare current null-sec industry to current high-sec industry.

Just to use the very simplest example: in the particular system I work in, it's very very easy for me to fill every single manufacturing slot. I have enough alts to do so easily. That's very discouraging to others to play in my playground because I'm constantly using those slots. The same can't be said for null-sec (for the most part). Even if it could, and one player overran the manufacturing slots for one null-sec station, what are the other several hundred players who use that station supposed to do?

Someone ran the numbers a few years back and determined that null-sec stations were incapable of producing even the amount of ammunition fired by players living in those null-sec stations. I have a hard time seeing how even the most rabid high-sec manufacturer could think that's balanced or as it should be.

No one is disputing that these changes will boost null-sec industry, but they are also likely to result in a significant number of unsubs of high-sec industry players.

The real problem here is that these changes are certainly not likely to promote an equal or greater number of new players to join the game, to replace those losses. This is the reason why EVE continues to bleed players and shows no growth.

So, do you sacrifice revenue, in order to achieve some ideal of game balance? Hmm....

"Someone ran the numbers a few years back and determined that null-sec stations were incapable of producing even the amount of ammunition fired by players living in those null-sec stations. I have a hard time seeing how even the most rabid high-sec manufacturer could think that's balanced or as it should be."

The "unable to produce enough ammo in null to support itself" is the most disingenuous trope. I expect it of Malcanis, but you putting forth this troll bait Jester?

My mates and I are done. We spent the last two months running COSMOS missions to gain standings to put up our first POS to do BPO research, as a precursor to building ships and modules. And now, CCP pulls the rug from under our feet. Everyone is telling us that we wasted our time with the standings and that we need to move to null sec space. No clue as to who is in CCP's target market, but it obviously does not include us.

You forgot to include the upcoming changes to refining and mining - which actually nerfs high-sec slightly and gives yet another significant buff to null-sec.

Quite frankly, I'm fine with all of this. If the CCP devs want the high-sec players to unsub, then, they will only have themselves to blame when they lose their jobs in the next round of layoffs, as CCP revenues continue to drop. The players will always be able to find another game to play.

*Smiles. So now industrialists will be forced to pay to play twice. Once to CCP for their subscription, and once to the nullsec coalition they rent from for the privilege of being allowed in nullsec to ply their trade.

The high-sec industrialists have always had that option, which is more profitable, but runs counter to their typically casual game play style.

As has often been said, CCP just doesn't understand that there is no way to force high-sec players to PVP or move to null-sec. Every time they try, it just results in more quiet unsubs. Casual players don't rage much - they just take their money elsewhere.

The deeper problem is that for all that they talk about a "sci-fi simulator," and for all that they chose corporations as their grouping mechanism, EVE is and it has always been hostile to industrial corporations, from design to implementation to meta. The people who are here to PVP, and who keep a stable of plausibly deniable alts to build things, are playing EVE as intended. Anyone who's here just to build is doing it wrong--they get the occasional bit of lip service, but the contempt that Mynnna heaped on industrial players in the minutes precisely describes the status quo.

Right now high sec allows people to play the game "wrong" and still enjoy it. Low sec does as well, to some degree. Null sec really doesn't. I don't know if CCP--or, to be fair, anyone else--has any idea just how many people contentedly play their game "wrong."

I've only dabbled in industry, so I'm content to sit back and see how the game changes, but as profound as this overhaul is I don't see it changing anything about the second-class role that industry has in the game.

Seems like there's some major changes going on, can't wait to resub and see how they play out for me.

I really think there's a major point being missed here; the ability to adapt around change. That's EVE's major trait in my opinion, the ability to adapt to a changing universe as it shifts and grows around you. If the industrialists don't want to change, that's their problem, they don't have to go to nullsec, their business plans will just need some tweaking if they want to remain profitable in highsec. If they don't do that, then in my opinion their corps deserve to go under.

Now, there is the potential to see more risk injected into null with the possible influx of industrialists taking advantage of the buffs to industry there. However we also must remember that there will be many who are industry alts of other players that do other things. This is also true for highsec industrialists as well.

And for all those complaining that CCP will lose subs, think of the players that will create alt accounts to replace those that leave or even new players subbing for the first time, I believe there are figures that show EVE's subscription rates have been rising for some time now. There is really too much value given to the highsec population as there's too many assuming that the majority of the highsec population are newbies, is this true, I don't have the hard numbers to back that up, but neither does that argument.

I'm of the mind that at best we can only predict what will happen with these changes, there is no certainty until events play out.

As an aside, very well-written post Ripard, you laid out what is changing and your own thoughts rather well.

@Alistair Drake I really wish what you said were true. I would love to have seen CCP keep the new subs after B-R5RB, but they didn't. It would also be great if CCP released an exciting expansion that brought up the numbers, but doesn't look that way. I read about 1-2 positive comments for every 5 comments posted. Not inspiring numbers.

@anonymous is correct. The PCU spiked after B-R5RB, but sank quickly afterwards. Summer numbers are always lower than winter, but I'm really wondering if we'll hit a new low this year. It will be very interesting to read Jester's interpretation of the PCU data once he has enough points to calculate the long-term trends and compare the effect of this expansion with others.

tell us Alistair, how would you go with being told that destroyers were getting a nerf on the pretexted of consuming more ammo and a more liquid market. If you want to the same DPS, you will need a 4% implant and another 6weeks training?

I'm working on outdated information as I've been away from EVE for probably a year now, so there's things about EVE's mechanics I don't know for sure. I'll be resubbing this summer so I'll be able to see things first-hand probably. And to be honest, a possibly lower bar for becoming competitive in industry intrigues me.

However, I think there's a lot of people that are getting very worked up before these events actually play out, that's my concern. And honestly, I don't think anyone but CCP could predict what CCP is going to do.

But that would require effort and risk from all the casual industrialists, that would mean actually doing anything but sitting in stations and moving good around. And imagine if someone were to want and take the wormhole from them! The humanity!

@anon 800pm: Might want to reread his comment, it says the opposite of what you think it says. He's not saying "less competition, driving down the prices", he's saying "less (competition driving down the prices)"

@ 8:27 - youre saying he is referring to the prices of raw goods associated with industry? That would be true if we assume that miners mine for fun mostly and therefore wont reduce the amount they mine as the demand of mining good decreases.

The point of transferring industry to nullsec is to provide pvpers with cheap/easy kills. I think these newbie industry players will disappear from nullsec and eve after being ganked a couple of times. After all CCP have a track record of getting highsec players to interact with nullsec players. http://jestertrek.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/backfire.html

To the commenter that said HS standings are a significant cost in time, don't forget that grinding a HS faction up to the standing needed for good refine rates actually engages you in one of the isk faucets in the game: Bounties and Mission Reward Payouts. You also get LP, which If you are smart lets you make isk off an isk sink as well, and gets you access to more locations for jump clones. Second, with the removal of standings requirements for POS anchoring, the need to actually grind standing will go down, especially if you decide to take advantage of using POS refining over station refining. The details on that are not out, but I imagine they will make some sort of balance changes for that as implied in the dev blog.

If CCP Greyscale and others is logical and consisted with the approach, they will also make it so that those taking part of ganking ships in high sec will soon find themselves blown up by CONCORD right after they enter high sec even if they haven't recently blown up anything. After all, empires shouldn't want anyone disturb their economy. This would of course mean that the ones who enjoy blowing other guys up outside wars and duels would have to go to low sec, null sec or wormholes. High sec would finally become the mythical safe region - which it would deserve after losing economically so much.

That's dumb you can lose alot of standings just from fighting in lowsec if you do it enough

also that's basically what already happens, the window of time before FAC PO come isn't super short but it's not exactly an eternity either also people with low standings can get shot at by anybody anytime anywhere

Still gotta bring in highsec minerals if you want that price advantage. The miner in nullsec has no reason to give you a discount just because he gets more out of his refines - as far as he's concerned, the full benefit of that 20% bonus should go into his pocket.

@Mynna - Of course you have to find someone willing to mine low end ores for you in nullsec for less than 60MM IPH. That means any miners migrating from highsec can't be allowed to make more iskies doing something else.

Hell with mineral barter for rent, minerals in uncompressed form are awful to move.

@Mord: So first thing's first, I imagine it's a fun drum to beat, but these days you're pretty off base on the whole low end minerals thing. The buffs to ores mean that the majority of low ends in most of the nullsec mining sites actually come from the high end ores. 112.9m out of 123.3m units of Tritanium found in a basic X-Large site, for example, come from the nullsec ores, Gneiss through ABC. The 'problem' with mining at this point is simply that it's still a pretty poorly paying activity compared to other options.

Second, the absolute value of mining actually has nothing to do with the point I was making at all. Long story short, what it comes down to is if the miner in nullsec (again, regardless of the on-paper isk/hr he can make) sells to a builder at anything but the empire rate he's taking money out of his own pocket - why should he want to do that? And conversely, if I as a builder buy from a miner at anything less than 83% of the empire rate (as I get 20% more minerals out of my ore I only have to buy 83% as much) I'm taking money out of our own pocket. So optimal for me as the builder is, as I stated, to import highsec minerals in the form of compressed ore and, well, the miner just sort of gets fucked because no one actually wants to buy what he's mining.

CCP is creating a situation where nosec has such a huge edge in production that anyone trying to fight their way into sov is going to be at a huge disadvantage in ship/ammo resupply. People keep talking like this is a business thing. While that's definitely a major element, they don't seem to be talking much about the strategic combat element. You dropped the ball as a CSM rep. The sov holders love it because it makes it that much harder to change the status quo. As for joining a renter corp, you're advocating submission to the status quo. Not only will corps be at a serious production/resupply disadvantage, you're advocating that they ALSO pay the sov holders. Can you not see the problem there? Every scenario puts the sov holder in the driver's seat.

What's also missing from this discussion is accounts. PLEX costs have risen dramatically. The cost of everything is about to go up by 14%. None of the ISK faucets, esp in hisec, is going to be increased. That means more and more hisec/losec players are going to have make hard choices about how many accounts they can reasonably run. If CCP was hoping those people would pay money for those subs, they are going to be disappointed. No one is going to run an 8 account indy alt team by paying real money for the accounts. Of course, sov corps will have an advantage there too, and with competitors who can't field as much "manpower" that strategic combat advantage becomes even stronger.

Everything about this situation reards nosec and punishes hisec. If CCP was looking for a good way to shed non-bluedonut subscribers, they found it.

Technical communication is a writing style that people use at work or for work. I use it when I write my boss an email or when I write a user manual for a computer.

Austin512-705-4280

The key word is "currently." The keys to EVE's future were just handed over to sov entities.

And what you don't understand about PLEX (indicating you didn't really bother to read what you're replying to) is that they can only be paid for if you can earn the isk to do so. That ability is about to destroyed.

For too long people have joked "eve is dying," because they believed it wasn't possible. This summer will be the beginning of determining whether or not it really will happen. Competition is coming. Driving out the more casual players while another game is simultaneously offering a place to get their spaceship fix is quite possibly the stupidest decision CCP could ever make.

As to faucets increasing the price of PLEX, that was not my point. My point is that industrial income is being destroyed, and with no additional income sources, anyone who doesn't move to null will not be able to support as many accounts. The fewer accounts they have, the harder it will be to grind for PLEX. It's a downward spiral.

You seem to be unable to connect the dots and just fall back to paranoia The keys to EVE's future are in CCP's hands and sov null holders care more about the future of the game than you. What's going on is that these and future economic changes will make alliance income less dependent on moons and renters and more on own their member's income. Being able to produce locally and create a functional market will be a boon to an alliance now instead of an exercise in futility.

The result will be a lessened need to conquer half the galaxy to rent out and leech moongoo from. A small safe core region full of industry can be equally profitable and much easier to defend. This is quite the opposite of current status quo don't you agree?

Also you seem to be under the impression that your 8th production alt somehow adds value to the game. It does not. Unsubbing your highsec alt will not be the death of EVE.

The joke is that nullsec has, by far, the biggest ISK faucets in the game. Removing the ISK injected by standings grinders will have a modest effect, which driving people into null sec will probably offset at the very least.

I would love to see more local economies spread out more widely across the game, which is one big reason why I voted Sugar Kyle for CSM: She wanted a fairly priced lowsec market, so rather than complain about "taking money out of her wallet," she just went and started one. The positive effects of the market on her bit of lowsec were, and still are, worth the entirely theoretical hit to her bottom line from her refusal to charge the highest price the market would bear.

If anything saves low sec or null sec, it will be more of that kind of enlightened self-interest.

Perhaps I am delusional, but I will wait a little while before deciding if I want to keep playing. As a solo, casual player who is not into griefing, I would never join goons or most of the other large alliances. This massive nerf to hisec is stupid and will be counter productive.

If CCP thinks the only role for me in the sandbox is to be a target for a group of PVPer who have already driven out all their other targets, then it is time for me to find another game.

Oh and as for my stuff, I won't give it away, I'll destroy it then biomass my character to to remove any temptation to come back again.

What's sad is it pry wouldn't be so bad if u know they found a good way to do sov. Eve needs an Indy expansion but it also needs null fixed. I dont care much cuz i live in low but hey at least if ccp fucks up to bad and i can't afford to pvp i hear darkfall is getting a revamp

I'll wait and see what these changes bring. I saw the handwriting on the wall from CCP Greyscale's vision of null-sec, and secured a position in a null-sec alliance. So, I can move my stuff to null, and all it cost me was skilling up pilot to fly a Scimitar and Guardian. But, I think the legacy of CSM 8 will be this summer expansion.

I used to be quite disappointed with the way I felt CCP was ruining my game. Every 6 months or so, CCP would do something else designed to push me into null. The truth is EVE could be a game I thoroughly enjoy, but CCP really does want everyone to align their playstyle with the visions of CCP. Ok. There are still some things I like about Eve, and for now I'll keep my subs-but I'll also allow myself to disconnect from EVE.

There's a new game that certainly looks like it will satisfy my need to mine, build, explore and PVE. Besides, it's FTP or about $3 a month if you want premium access.

Read the review from Massively:http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/04/18/ascent-the-space-game-on-building-a-better-sci-fi-sandbox/

Author's website:http://www.thespacegame.com/index.html

I plan on playing both Ascent and EVE for another 6 months or so while Ascent continues to add content, then I'll likely drop EVE.

Forgot to mention the best part of Ascent. No non-consensual PVP. There's certainly market PVP, NPC pirates, and competition for resources / ships, etc. To my surprise, I also discovered Ascent has blueprints, space stations, salvaging of wrecks, and research facilities.

Author's statement:--No violence unless you seek it. The remnants of the military keep pirates and other bad guys out of the safe eight systems. Now we have the Janus binary system in game, there is an element of danger for players who seek it. When we add PVP sectors, they will come with a clear warning sign - a player will need to agree that they accept being attacked before they are allowed to jump in.--http://www.thespacegame.com/designvision.html

So now that I have been proven right about the CSM and their lackey's intent, how long before PvE rewards in high sec get nerfed even more?

BTW, this also means that all LP just took a huge devaluation, if the surcharge is based on the expected sell price of the item, yet here we have the null sec cartels and their lackey dev's stating that blitzing missions is the way to go.

Oh, we have not even see the other shoe drop on invention. Just wait until THOSE are given a huge null sec buff and high sec nerf. I said it a year ago, T2 invention will be removed from high sec. It won't be the arbitrary removal I expected , it will be just made utterly unprofitable in high sec, just like manufacturing just was.

So all these renter corps, how much do they pay to the cartel serf lords? And how many pay with straight real life cash? I have said it many times. The goons are far from stupid. They are very good businessmen. They are intelligent, and completely devoid of morals. There is big big RMT business in driving all players to null.

One of the other questions is when do we start seeing the drumbeat for a total overhaul of sec status in all systems, shrinking high and low and creating more null? Or has that simply been solved with seagull's new gates that open up more space for the cartels?

Yup, looking forward to a year from now about how it is high sec's fault that subs are down.

Post 30 different predictions.Wait for one of them to be proven right, if you've made enough predictions, random chance dictates one of them will come true quite soon.???????This one prediction of many being proven right, obviously proves a barely related and hilariously fantastic conspiracy theory, completely and totally. Crow about this for a while.????Profit!

"Greyscale in particular has for years been the champion of the philosophy that doing some activities in some areas of space should completely suck and you would be dumb to do those activities there. In the past, the goal has been to make living full-time in null-sec directly correlate with higher player income than living in high-sec. I can easily see industry warping off in that direction come summer."

If I was a betting man, I say that around the time of fanfest 15% of eve's subscriber base will not renew. And CCP will lose a big chunk of their (casual) solo players that were comfortable in lo/hisec, by spending there money elsewhere in other games.

How about this:When Star Citizen or Ascent, or whatever game you choose, starts getting ramped up, CCP sends in the goons to grief the players in that new game, so it fails, and people return to Eve. Of course, the goons and pl and russians will already be doing that, since it is in their leaders' financial interests to make sure that nothing interferes with the Eve based RMT flows.

Even if I were to buy a tinfoil bonnet I doubt that they would destroy those games, more likely they would establish RMT trades there. Diversity in business is the key to longevity and survival and no golden egg lasts forever.

@Anonymous 11:14 I completely agree. As a guy with a job and a family, I do not have hours and hours to devote to EVE, but I do like industry. High sec fits my play style, because I can log in for short periods of time. In a few minutes, I can buy minerals, contract to Red Frog for transport, start a few invention jobs and check on my manufacturing...leaving with a feeling of satisfaction. Well, that is the way it is now. We'll see what happens after the summer expansion.

As it is now, I can use tools like Eve ISK per hour to quickly calculate my profit margins, without bending over backwards. All these new fees and falling high sec profit margins could complicate industry to the point that it becomes a second job. Why would I pay for that?

If EVE no longer supports my play style, then I'll have to re-evaluate things. There are a few other spaceship games available now, with some quite nice ones on the way. They're not Eve, but they're close.

If the number of high-sec indy players is more than 5% of New Eden's entire population, you'd be surprised. Based on what? Have you run the numbers? Counting Indy bears in highsec prom Provi? Is the % a SWAG? Was the 5% estimate provided the CSM by CCP? Just a number you pulled out of your ass?

"Number of indy players" vs "number of devoted indy players." Not every one of the former is one of the latter. But unfortunately there's precious little info that's complete enough to try to make an actual estimate at all, much less how many of those are "devoted".

How about this:When Star Citizen or Ascent, or whatever game you choose, starts getting ramped up, CCP sends in the goons to grief the players in that new game, so it fails, and people return to Eve. Of course, the goons and pl and russians will already be doing that, since it is in their leaders' financial interests to make sure that nothing interferes with the Eve based RMT flows."

That's shitty tinfoil, you're just predicting that Goons will do what they always do, and what they've already started to do--there are already Goon chapters in Star Citizen. Real Tinfoil would be predicting something unlikely, not just predicting a virtual certainty and dressing it up in tinfoil...wait a second, if Tinfoil is fake, then is real tinfoil more fake or less fake than just plain 'tinfoil'? I'm lost in a sea of oxymoronicity.

Mynna: ""Number of indy players" vs "number of devoted indy players." Not every one of the former is one of the latter. But unfortunately there's precious little info that's complete enough to try to make an actual estimate at all, much less how many of those are "devoted"."

Actually most of indys I know are casual/hisec alts to PvP/null/WH mains. Guess they can just shut down the shop, unsub the alts and stay with their mains.

@ Jester. But yourself stated that prices will rise across the board. Meantime mission runners' income just got hammered. While the casual industrialist is going extinct, and possibly a small part of the player base, the impact on the overall high sec economy is devastating for all.

And we all know that PvE income is facing more hits, other than 50% nerf on mission loot and the LP nerf of 14% we just took.

"Running missions for income is stupid. If this gets people to stop doing it then CCP is doing them a favor."There will be favours done all around. CCP does them favour and they will end up playing other games. Meanwhile they do CCP favour and give CCP excuse to do another round of layoffs. That does favour to those workers who can finally do what they should have been doing - get a real job elsewhere.

cm april, Placing your play style as the one and only to play in a game of many styles, (well fewer styles as time goes bye it seems) results will likely be fewer subs playing. ps. IF null sec has so many great game styles then it would be full and high sec would be empty, hmm, all numbers in game seems to say other wise

Who says it's going to be 14% across all of high-sec? It sounds like it'll be on a per-station basis. If a station is heavily loaded, then it'll pay the max. If not, it'll pay less according to the load demanded of it. If the manufacturing station near you mission hub is overtaxed, go find a different one that doesn't have a huge population maxing it out.

All that tax will end up doing is encouraging people to spread out into lesser populated areas, and those that want to maximize profits will have to be creative and/or take a risk.

@Jester - big fan of your blog, but what I think you and CCP fail to understand is that the path to more subscribers, and continuing financial health of CCP and the game, is improving high-sec, not null-sec.

Null-sec does not have a player retention problem. I think that if you do a player survey, you'll find that most null-sec players are all fairly committed to the game, and the least likely to unsub. I don't think we've ever had a drop in player counts in null-sec.

High-sec is where new players are introduced to the game, and where they develop sufficient interest to stick with it and eventually move to low-sec and null-sec. This is the pool from which you get growth in both low-sec and null-sec. The bigger the pool of high-sec players, the more that the play in both low-sec and null-sec will grow (in absolute numbers, if not percentage - and who really cares about high-vs-low-vs-null percentage?).

So, changes which negatively affect high-sec, which force more non-consensual PVP and reduce rewards, only decrease the player retention rate in high-sec, which, in turn, reduces the pool of high-sec players -> lowering sub numbers and resulting in less players to migrate to low-sec and null-sec.

Risk vs reward? There should be no risk in high-sec and plenty of reward. Personally, I don't care if high-sec is designed to be carebear heaven, where null-sec players never go to play. If there are a 100,000 new carebear players subscribing each year, then we can count on at least 1,000 of them moving to null-sec when they are ready. And, in the meantime, those extra 100,000 carebears means that much more subscription revenue for CCP, which means more money to do game improvements for null.

And, that is what should be the focus of CCP and CSM. You guys are not seeing the big picture.

Just CCP gots that in the opposite way: as nullsec players stay longer, then they must favor nullsec players even if that hurts the players who stay the least, that is, hiseccers... and the new players along with them.

I used to advocate for a meaningful hisec, which would be as rich and enticing as nullsec. But then, it appears that there at CCP they really think that "doing some activities in some areas of space should completely suck and you would be dumb to do those activities there".

Then what about the people that HAVE been in highsec for years and years?

CCP is not forcing anyone out to nullsec, you'd have to be out of your mind to think that's the case. Just adapt to the changes or be left in the dust.

Yes highsec profit margins are going to take a hit when it comes to industry, but that's the objective CCP wants, highsec is safer than other areas of the game due to CONCORD, while lowsec and null are riskier but provide sufficient risk that it balances out the greater income.

However the problem with this is that now the increased productivity needs to be balanced out in some way, whether through the enticing targets of industrialists moving into null space, or CCP doing something about how sov works in null.

@Alistair - as one of those people who have been in high-sec for years and years...

My game play style is casual. Because of RL priorities, I spend a few hours per week, on 2 accounts, doing high-sec industry. And, usually, when I play, my attention is split - I start up a few things in the game, then need to pay attention to the kids, or read Jester's blog.

My friends (also casual players) and I compete to see how much ISK we can earn each week. Loser buys the beer.

I used to do long-distance hauling, before ganking became too prevalent to use AP. Then, I did mining, until it, too, was overwhelmed by gankers. CONCORD does not provide any safety any more, due to the ongoing nerfs to high-sec play and buffs to PVP. So, these days, I just do research, industry and PI.

I've never been wardec'ced because my small POS isn't worth it.

So, CCP is now going to make it impossible to do research in high-sec POS, due to a screwed-up belief that there has to be the same amount of risk in high-sec as in null-sec. If I leave my labs on my POS, I will get wardec'ced now. They are going to add more taxes to manufacturing in NPC stations, so that null-sec players can be more competitive in the market than high-sec players. And, they are going to take away standings requirements for POSes, so that null-sec alliance players can more easily plant a lot more high-sec POSes (which they are far better able to defend since no one can afford to wardec them).

This isn't balance and there is no way to adapt, for the casual player. It is CCP telling me to take my sub money and go play another game.

I got the message. It has been fun, but now it is time to go find a new game to play.

Nullsec doesn't have a player retention problem, it's true. What it does have a problem with is that industrialists are literally not valued. PL charges rent in supers built, because it is beneath them to do industry even as a hobby.

"Risk vs. Reward" aside, CCP has a vision for this game, and it involves *players* building societies in 0.0 space. Unfortunately, as it is today, the only thing you get are warlords with the exception of Providence, and Providence is full of people who know they are playing suboptimally but keep their space only because nobody can be arsed to grind Providence again. This is a shame, because I want to see societies where manufacturers are viewed as something other than servants to be abused when you feel like it. I want it to be worth it to build a home and be proud of it. The way it is currently, you ship your home in on a JF, instead, from someone faceless who built it for peanuts. (To be fair, a lot of peanuts add up to a reasonable living; I have a manufacturing alt building T1 rigs and he makes ~1B a month for a little time managing it each day.)

Finally we can put a stake into the heart of the tired old refrain; how carebears exercise major influence over CCP for every petty nerf to high-sec "piracy". Boys there will be less targets after summer, you may have to start shooting each other to compete over the right to gank. This must be the new order so many have been crowing for.

People can ask whatever they please for an item, but that doesn't mean it will sell or sell in a timely manner.

There is a strategy associated with market PVP. If you have found a niche then please exploit it. Understand though, you're not the only one playing EVE. Someone else will discover your little oasis.

People who have been playing for a while tend to go after larger, more challenging projects. They also depend more on volume sales. Once your skills increase, you'll learn more about how tight some of the margins are. Good luck. ;-)

Yes, there *is* a strategy associated with market PVP, and you clearly haven't figured it out yet. I'll give you a hint, though - it is NOT about volume sales and ridiculously small margins.

I've been playing for six years, living in my "oasis" of most of high-sec, and raking in far better than 100% profit on my near-monopoly of several items. I've had challengers arise frequently, and leave without a profit, while I still rake in billions of ISK per week.

And, much like the gankers, I enjoy the tears of those of you who can't figure out why they can't break my monopolies, or setup their own.

Goodness, the number of comments from this blog topic may surpass the "can of worms" you opened regarding the bonus room.

Looks to me like you have upset your base.

I hear your point about the industrial changes making sense when looking at CCP's 3-year plan. I just can't get how CCP decided that industry overhaul was more important than SOV changes, POS revamp, new ships, new modules, or even something exciting such as ring mining. Instead, we get this? More risk less reward?

Why didn't you see this much of a backlash coming? You sure knew you were going to get hammered with the bonus room post.

I sure hope that CSM 8 is not remembered for the "Summer of Boredom" expansion.

"I just can't get how CCP decided that industry overhaul was more important than SOV changes, POS revamp, new ships, new modules, or even something exciting such as ring mining. Instead, we get this? More risk less reward?"

Everything I've seen points toward the reason being that manufacturing that isn't broken being required before a meaningful sov revamp can happen. I'm hoping we'll get POS something in the winter with their promised improvements to invention. On the other hand, more likely, they're going to phase out POSes in favor of more of the new deployables.

As for ring mining? Somewhere in Mynnna's CSM thread he accidentally demonstrated that either it will crash T2 prices even more or else it will likely be less worth doing than mining from belts for regular minerals.

I trade full-time in Jita, shuffle items between trade hubs, and manufacture some items with decent margin in high-sec. You are right - i have no idea how it is in null - because there is no incentive for me to go there.

As it is, all the big money/production/trading is concentrated in high-sec. With the hassle/risk of null, there is no reason to leave high-sec.

I'm not the OP, but I agree with him. I burned out on shooting red crosses ages ago when I was running missions and never recovered. My current income is a combination of seeding my home station's market and a manufacturing alt in highsec. I can reliably find build slots two jumps from Jita!

It may be ridiculously easy to make money in null, but you have to be doing the make-mony-in-null things, and if you're burned out on those... well, industry isn't one of them. Instead, I profit from supplying them, but I do no manufacturing for that: it literally isn't worth the effort to me compared to supplying them stuff with a 20% markup. (which is generally considered low, these days, I think?) In any event, we consume little enough that, for every one of us doing serious industry, it's a net-export thing anyway.

Nullsec's difficulty is that shooting those red crosses delivers more IPH by far than the low value activities, like mining low end ores, that are the underpinnings of New Eden's economy. Most of that work is done by highsec characters who, for various reasons, are willing to work for a much lower IPH than is acceptable in nullsec. It is a cost of labor problem.

Breaking the back of industry in HS and LS space is intended to drive that cheap labor into NS, entry to which is controlled by its major cartel coalitions.

I have to agree that there is little incentive to go to null-sec as a casual player. Since my toon is ready for logistics, I just use my 10 hours play time each month to fly incursions in high, earning me enough for a plex each month plus a little extra on the side. Even if null would pay better, why should I go there? I already can't use all the ISK I'm making due to time constraints.

Well I think it makes sense for Null sec to be better than High-sec in general.

The problem I have with the recent announced changes is the changes to standings.

I think standings should be the gate to profits in High-sec space. They are annoying barriers that help put some blocks on Null-sec from also dominating High-sec space.

If Standings controlled the ability to anchor in highsec then there would be a reward for the player who put the time in to achieve those standings and it would prevent the largest groups from using their mains. There would still be the problem of alts. But it is much easier to take down a Null-sec alts one man corp than it would be to take down Goonswarms POS in Jita.

I would hope that profit for industry went from high to low, from Null-sec station, to POS anywhere, to lowsec station to highsec station. However a mechanic to remove unused POSes more easily needs to be looked at for Highsec.

I am a casual player with three accounts. I do lowsec PvP, industry, markets. I have tried null and it does not suit my casual play style. Unless null changes significantly there is little chance I will migrate there. I have zero interest in renting it joining a renting corp. This is NOT what I play for.

Don't ruin my casual play style. I am not willing OR able to increase the amount of time I play so it would drive me out of the game. I expect lowsec to be buffed for casual players. Leave null to those with adequate time for it.

Well said. Most people work for a living, have a SO, and maybe a dog or kids. Our money still spends as well as someone living in null. Heck, we're an even better deal for CCP because we're not logged in 24/7.

Eh, EVE I'd have thought was meant to have a range, industry currently is a good way for a new player to make a little isk, but more than just mining. I would hope CCP has a method to replace that lost income for noobs, or eve may not be long term stable or upward trending with noobs quiting because it takes far to long to be able to afford things, besides, most of the null players are already rather space rich or just scraping by with ragged cloths to keep up with the rent, CTAs, supply delays, awoxers, dues, taxes, thefts, markups, etc. Please my good sir, make sure they do know that noobs don't do null sec, I tried and died, that null is currently either to dangerous to do anything or far safer than highsec with not much in between. Noobs also aren't going to be buying plex like crazy, incursion, market pvp, or much else other than suck at eve and provide ammo, shuttles, and bunches of other bulk low cost products(that's how I got started, I moved to null twice and got tossed out on my ear both times due to CFC griefing/roflstomping the much small alliance I was in, but in that period of time I couldn't even get a mining fleet to undock most of the time, I had a cloak on my orca and mined in the belts to dodge the roamers, we built only a few BCs before we realised that we couldn't even keep pace with one persons ship losses to roams and CTAs.)TL;DR Please tell them that the noobs aren't going to like not having a good way to make money when they start, oh and with the null bears burning down Jita every year and going on roams to muck with high sec, they may not be very eager/able to ship the things they make to highsec.

Hisec is never going to appeal to a large part of of newbies. Their preferred playstyle involves the full bloody sandbox of null not the watered down version in Jita. These changes empower newbies who do not want to die of boredom. Why do you hate newbies?

"1. Any industry feature must have an actual gameplay attached to it in order to exist"

and the topic of the last dev blog, which he writes,

"In a last blog, CCP Soniclover will introduce the concept of teams, which are the workforce used for industry jobs in the new system."

...I can't help but have a bad feeling about those two statements.

I'm a small-scale industrialist, and I'm more likely to be one of those guys who would go to null for indy stuff because I have considered doing that already, right up to the point RL kicked me in the nuts. Havins said that, I sure hope that I won't *need* a team to stay competitive. I'm too casual about it and don't need more work responsibility while I'm trying to have fun.

...Now if this concept of teams means sov holding null sec will need industrialists to keep some sort of index up to have nice bonuses, and can be done in a fun (ha!) and isk making manner, I might be up for it more...and who knows? Maybe indies will get some respect out in sov holding null!

I would not count on the team features being a good thing. SonicLover has a track record of ill-conceived, poorly considered, and badly implemented features, which inevitably result in screwing over solo players and small corps. No reason to expect this to change.

I think by teams, he means that they are npc's that work for you, and that you can improve with experience and isk. Like pit crews in racing games. In manufacturing, I imagine that they could provide bonuses to completion time and material wastage. It would be a nice little mini-game for industrialists.

I'm a causal hi-seccer and a pretty serious wormholer. I have 11 accounts. 4 of my accounts are in j-space and the remainder are spread out in New Eden doing various things like running missions, doing some industry and researching at my POS. None of my 7 non-wormhole accounts makes me rich nut they do give me something to do when there is no pvp to be had. Depending on how these changes go I may be unsubbing the 7 hi-sec/low-sec accounts. It's not the loss of isk, it's CCP attempting to force players to move to null-sec or be punished. Not moving to null...ever. Had enough of that crap in 7 years of playing this game.

Again with the "force people into nullsec" rubbish. No one is going to be "forced" into nullsec. Apart from anything else, the people who are already in nullsec might want their facilities for their own use.

You've been perfectly fine with people being "forced" into hi-sec for years without a murmur of complaint. 0.0 players have been "forced" to conduct their industrial operations in hi-sec, because the mechanical advantages of hi-sec production are utterly overwhelming. Now CCP are making it viable for those 0.0 players to make their own stuff in their own space. To the exact extent that this happens, pressure on hi-sec facilities will decrease. Every nullseccer who moves his battleship building operation to sov 0.0 means that much more unused station facilities and hi-sec moons for those who remain.

But apparently this situation is so horrible that you're going to quit about it. Well I'm sure that makes sense to you, but your dyslogia isn't a reason for CCP to leave the game massively imbalanced for ever.

Don't be ridiculous, Malcanis. The tone of the blog is 'highsec manufacturing won't be as profitable as null so you had better all think hard about moving there to rent'. It isn't surprising it got a strong response.

Null needed a buff. Highsec needed a nerf. Did lowsec need a nerf? I think that's a bit silly.

I'm sorry to say Malcanis that while this revamp is much needed it does come across (deliberate or not) as an attempt to push people out of HiSec and into the awaiting rental agreements of the powers that be.

For myself once the other dev blogs are out I shall see what the numbers say, with luck it will be worth the effort of mothballing the POS and moving my operations into LowSec with my main. If the numbers say Null is the only reasonably profitable space to build it then I'll just mothball the accounts as well. We'll see how long the sale of their assets keeps the PvP going but when that ISK runs out it will probably be goodbye EvE.

I put up with the general crappy attitude in Null towards anyone that wants to play this game differently for half a decade, it just isn't worth going back to even if that means leaving the game.

Right, so just as people were "forced into high sec", you are now perfectly fine with the pendulum being swung so far, you are now perfectly fine with the people being forced into null sec. And that is it what it is. Does it make it viable for people to mfg in null? It was a complete lie that null ever had any problems doing it. But, now, high sec industrialists have zero chance to compete with anyone who decides to set up shop in null and sell goods in high.

At best for high sec, it becomes a third world state exporting raw low end ore to null sec, while importing all value added products from null sec.

Oh, and BTW, the only advantages high sec had over deep sov null sec was the fact that the demand for the products was in high sec, and large scale trade hubs never coalesced in null sec. That was due to simple laws of supply and demand, market forces. What you and the other fucking evil pieces of shit from the cartels have created is a situation where you are trying to force the creation of these trade hubs by delivering enormous incentives to null sec to not only manufacture there, but to naturally live there as well. Of course, when these new null sec serfs end up fattening the RMT wallet of the cartel leaders with all those lovely station taxes, well, that was just a coincidence.

Well, it won't work. Yes, some in high will move to null, and live under the yoke of the sociopaths running the cartels. Some will hang on in high, until the bitter end. But many, they will quit the game, the casual players. But that is all right with you and your kind if they leave. You figure that CCP can chug along without them. You have badly underestimated how many will simply leave. And yes, I know that many more nerfs to high sec income are inbound. That will just accelerate the situation.

I would just like to say that I appreciate Malcanus and what he has done. Those poor folks in null sec, they already have the best ore to mine, the best sites to run, the best ratting, moon goo income, outposts to tax and space to rent. This was never enough for the downtrodden souls out there, as they must have every advantage. And Malcanus came to their rescue, he took up arms against..... well I'm not sure since the CSM is dominated by null sec representation. But nevertheless he championed the lowly and humble in null and has laid waste to the threat of the carebear high sec industry player that has plagued this game from the start. These carebear bastards have ruined this game for years, paying for subscriptions, making thousands of ships and modules a month from the safety of their high sec havens, selling things to null sec players at low margins, not exploding when Malcanus and his friends deem it necessary. How dare they play the game the way they want, this is a sandbox and THIS OUTRAGE COULD NOT STAND!! I just hope that with the huge number of carebears that will be cancelling their accounts that Malcanus gets a promotion in meat space so he can open 400 more accounts to support his new vision of Eve Online, as CCP is going to need all the help it can get in recrafting its vision of the game where people pay good money every month to fill the pockets of null sec cartels with ISK. I'm not sure why anyone would pay to play such a game but who am I, certainly not a member of the braintrust that features Malcanus.

I really don't understand why this is being framed as a "highsec nerf" or a "nullsec buff" it's really just a buff to stations that don't have much manufacturing going on in them, we don't even know how hard/easy it will be to bring the manufacturing cost up to 14% (or even 1%)

for all we know all you'll have to do is horror of horrors move five jumps out from jita instead of two

One thing to make the completely fair and muc more interesting for all secs. Forbid JF (only JFs) to jump trough cyno in or out of lowsec. They would need to travel trough gates in lowsec and highsec ofc.

Christ I'm worried more and more about how this Industry expansion is going to pan out. I'm a casual. I enjoy being a casual building about 10 T2 Cruisers or 1 Marauder a month, shooting red crosses or exploring in between builds and Jita runs.

I was excited at first that industry is getting some love. Now it's looking more and more like It's only going to help the Nullsec Blocs. Renters are still going to have to tack on rent to the cost of doing business so unless CCP nerfs high sec to the point that being a renter Null is cheaper than building in High sec nothing will change.

I play solo, I enjoy it so much I've been doing it for 3 years now. I'm also in my Starter Corp CAS which is an awesome Corp and because fuck wardecs. I have a copy and research alt with a small tower. That tower tower is coming down. The idea that to remain competitive I'd need to have billions of isk worth of BPO's out there in a tower is laughable. The idea that I couldn't take a long weekend with my family without worrying about a game and my tower coming down is in insane. Right now if I'm a way and I lose my small tower and 3 labs that sucks but it's recoverable. Losing a BPO collection??? Even just copying or ME researching 1 BS BPO in a pos would be retarded. So I guess I have to see what the new station prices will be.

Seeing what's coming with the "Teams" just has me even more worried. I might play solo but that doesn't mean I don't interact with other players. I buy low end minerals mined buy players in high sec, buy moon goo from Null Sec alts, sell HACs to players and play trading games for up to a week some time with other sellers. All of this is me interacting with other people while I'm chatting in CAS Corp chat. I've never felt like I'm truly playing this game alone. God I wish I had not just re-subbed for a year. I really hope EVE just doesn't become skill queue online.

I'm not quitting by any means, I am cutting down my accounts (maybe). I do think that null industry needs a buff but at the same time if I don't like what the changes do to the play style I enjoy with some of my accounts then I don't see why I should keep those accounts subbed. I love Eve, as long as W-hole space is around I will play. If my tiny little T2 industry and research industry becomes untenable then I won't need those accounts, I absolutely will not be moving any of my accounts to Null, I don't like living under an overlord as part of my game. That should be my prerogative so what's with your nasty tone?

WOW - The null-sec cartels must have RMTed enough isk to own 51% of ccp shares and like the german invasion of poland, all just a small step to a larger global scheme to make Mittens, Grath, and Vince rich....holy fuck guys...take a breath and relax.

**** So many tears …. such little faith ****

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill

Give it to CCP for taking the difficult challenges head on, finally.

You wanted an expansion that will shake the game and not just add some new bells or more bacon vending tools?You want the game to improve so you will have it there in the years to come to continue and enjoy?!!!You want more options to play the game in more ways than before? You want a game to stay true to its existing theme of risk v reward?

Give all your input to the community, go ahead; fire away! But give CCP a chance with this one, they are doing what we have asked them to all along. Improve the game in big ways.

Maybe this time next year, after the 2014 winter expansion, we will look back at this summer’s release and then see its true worth.

I think you make sense. People shouldn't be unsubbing until after they see what CCP has in store. However, I think the sentiment is pretty clear that if this turns into an overall nerf to everyone but null-seccers then solo, casual players will leave. You can't blame them, this is a game after all, they don't necessarily have to adapt when they can just move on.

@Mord: I'm so happy to be in a dual Mord and Jester discussion, you are my two favorite bloggers. However, what I said was "if this turns into an overall nerf to everyone but null-seccers then solo, casual players will leave. You can't blame them, this is a game after all, they don't necessarily have to adapt when they can just move on..." I never said that people should "enjoy having sov nullsec urinate in your corn-flake" in fact I think quite the opposite will hapen. Mass unsubs...simple. I think tha is why we haven't seen the next industry blog because CCP is afraid of the backlash. I truly hope that a whatever changes they ultimately decide on are sane ones because i love the game; I just hate null-sec playstyle. Give me PvP, ganking, roams and w-holes but I'm never kow-towing to some other player in null. I'm a professional adult, I don't need to be put in some rank structure and scremed at by an FC.

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